Defense establishes Total Information Awareness oversight panels

Newton Minow, a media scholar and former Federal Communications Commission chairman under President Kennedy, will head a federal advisory board to oversee development of the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project, a senior Pentagon official announced Friday.

Minow will be joined on the board by a number of prominent Democrats, including Zoë Baird, President Clinton's first nominee for attorney general and current president of the Markle Foundation, a New York-based group that studies the potential of information technology to address public needs. Clinton White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler will also serve on the board, along with Griffin Bell, the attorney general under President Carter, and civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams.

The panel will report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the legal and policy issues raised by the potential application of TIA, a research project that examines technologies that could be used to identify terrorists by scanning databases of credit card purchases, airline reservations, car rentals and other transactions. The project is under fire from privacy advocates, who say it's unnecessarily invasive, and computer scientists, who question whether the system could work with a high degree of accuracy.

Edward Aldridge, Defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, announced the creation of the board at a briefing Friday, and said he will also chair a second internal advisory group of Defense officials. That group will monitor how TIA tools make the transition from the research phase-their current status-to actual use. The board also will establish policies for any use of TIA by the department. The panel will include several other Defense undersecretaries and the department's general counsel. The group will hold its first meeting at the end of February.

Aldridge emphasized that TIA is still only a concept, not a device, but he said there are no plans to curtail development of the research project. The president's fiscal 2004 budget includes $20 million for TIA funding, and the project is slated to receive $10 million in fiscal 2003.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., recently introduced a measure that would block that funding unless the administration submits a full report about the project's scope and intended use. Aldridge said the department is working with Congress to find "an acceptable compromise" to the amendment.

The composition of the outside panel is notable for its partisan affiliation and its members' active support of civil rights issues. The members will be free to solicit opinions and advice from anyone they choose, including the privacy advocates who have strongly opposed the TIA project, Aldridge said.

The TIA project is headed by John Poindexter, who served as President Reagan's national security adviser. Poindexter was convicted of multiple felony counts of lying to Congress during hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were later overturned.

Aldridge said there is no indication Poindexter will be removed as the project's director.